Or never tell him to do it. If Garrett didn't want Romo making adjustments in the last 10 seconds of the play clock, it wouldn't happen. You can blame it on Romo all you want, but that is by direction from the OC. If the o-line can't handle it, then the OC needs to adjust the gameplan.

I've heard it said that there isn't a strong correlation between penalties and overall team performance, however, when I look at the bottom 10 team in terms of penalties I see mostly bad or mediocre teams.

That's five playoff teams out of the bottom 10. The records of those 10 teams, in descending order -- 12-4, 11-4-1, 11-5, 10-6, 10-6, 8-8, 7-8-1, 6-10, 5-11, 4-12. That's a combined 84-74-2 for the 10 most-penalized teams in the league -- a winning percentage of .531, compared with a winning percentage of .486 (171-181) for the 22 least-penalized teams.

That's five playoff teams out of the bottom 10. The records of those 10 teams, in descending order -- 12-4, 11-4-1, 11-5, 10-6, 10-6, 8-8, 7-8-1, 6-10, 5-11, 4-12. That's a combined 84-74-2 for the 10 most-penalized teams in the league -- a winning percentage of .531, compared with a winning percentage of .486 (171-181) for the 22 least-penalized teams.

In other words, being in the Top 10 for most penalties is where we want to be.

In 2006 which was Bill's last season with the Cowboys they were ranked 20th (least to most) in penalties.

And fwiw, in 03, 04, and 05, the Cowboys averaged 5.9, 6.6, and and 6.2 penalties per game, all in the top 10 in the nfl. In 06 they averaged 6.4 but that was 21st in the leauge. This year the Cowboys are averaging 7.8

That's a post I made after the ATL game so I'm not sure exactly where we are now. The point is, that regardless of stats relative to the league, this team commits far more penalties than Bill's teams ever did.

If I'm a statistician, I want to know total number of penalties - accepted AND declined. Declined penalties strongly indicate that the other team got a more favorable outcome.

For a playoff team like the 49ers, I'd be curious to see if more penalties were accepted because their defense got a sack or other positive play.

Conversely, I wonder how many Cowboys penalties were declined since the opposition, say, preferred their 25-yard gain as opposed to our defense committing a 5-yard offsides penalty.

While the accepted penalties may be a comparable amount, total penalties may show a more significant and telling divide.

All of that has been checked as to mathematical correlation to winning and losing. The only penalties that have a correlation are offensive penalties.

As far as procedural offensive penalties go, I don't know if I would blame them all on lack of focus. It's more about being in sync with what the QB is doing. Romo does too much pre-snap adjustments, particularly last second. I've been saying this for years. Yes, he needs help from the coaching staff in this issue. But, it's probably his biggest weakness from a strategic standpoint.